The thread from Tim the other day and the Delas tasting over on WineBeserkers.com intrigued me so I picked up a bottle of the `07 Saint-Esprit. Reading all the notes, it is pretty obvious that there is some vaste bottle variation here.

WTN: `07 Delas Freres Cotes du Rhone Saint-Esprit.

Not a bad price here, $18 Cdn. Good quality cork, opened half hour and consumed over two days. Slightly better on day 2, less astringent on the finish.

Color is light garnet with purple tinges on rim. Other TNs elsewhere speak of a much darker wine than mine.

Nose is baked cherry pie with some raspberry as it airs. Not all that special for me.

On the palate, dry, cherry, raspberry. Highish acidity, no big structure here. Soft tannins, tad earthy but some bitterness on the finish. Pretty average wine I`d say, has to be better out there for the price. Tims bottle was better than this I think.Day 2, hint of cocoa, more savoury but not too pleasant a drink. Most thoughts elsewhere on the other forum seem to echo my feeling?

Bob, on the strength of my impressions at the tasting recorded in my Delas thread, I bought a bottle of this with a view to buying more if first impressions were confirmed. We opened it a few nights ago. I liked it much less than before noting an acidic streak and a slight coarseness in mid-palate which did not strike me before; the usually sweeter toothed Germaine this time liked it better than me. However unlike your bottle, the colour was deep and there was structure. The colour in particular makes me wonder whether your bottle was mistreated somewhere along the line.

I have to say that the pairing we had, a rather sweet "tarte tatin aux oignons", emphasised the acidity and did not do the wine any favours. So I am reluctant to say that in my case this was a matter of bottle variation rather than palate variation engendered by food. I need to try it again with a more suitable pairing. However, there are, I think, some 400,000 bottles of this wine, so several bottling runs with different results as well as transport and storage factors could lead to a lot of bottle variation.

Bob Parsons Alberta. wrote:The thread from Tim the other day and the Delas tasting over on WineBeserkers.com intrigued me so I picked up a bottle of the `07 Saint-Esprit. Reading all the notes, it is pretty obvious that there is some vaste bottle variation here.

WTN: `07 Delas Freres Cotes du Rhone Saint-Esprit.

Not a bad price here, $18 Cdn. Good quality cork, opened half hour and consumed over two days. Slightly better on day 2, less astringent on the finish.

Color is light garnet with purple tinges on rim. Other TNs elsewhere speak of a much darker wine than mine.

Nose is baked cherry pie with some raspberry as it airs. Not all that special for me.

On the palate, dry, cherry, raspberry. Highish acidity, no big structure here. Soft tannins, tad earthy but some bitterness on the finish. Pretty average wine I`d say, has to be better out there for the price. Tims bottle was better than this I think.Day 2, hint of cocoa, more savoury but not too pleasant a drink. Most thoughts elsewhere on the other forum seem to echo my feeling?

Bob, I am probably showing my worst side, but I have in fact never had a Delas wine that I could ever recommend. the best have been drinkable only, and the worst totally undrinkable. I would add that I have never had one that I thought was anything but just and simply bad wine, none corked, or cooked, or premox, or reductive, just not good.

Bob Henrick wrote:Bob, I am probably showing my worst side, but I have in fact never had a Delas wine that I could ever recommend. the best have been drinkable only, and the worst totally undrinkable. I would add that I have never had one that I thought was anything but just and simply bad wine, none corked, or cooked, or premox, or reductive, just not good.

Bob, when did you last have a wine from Delas? IMO, they have become very sound producers, if rarely exciting, since the Roederer take-over. I prefer the likes of Jamet, Graillot, Gonon and Clape, but if they are not available and Delas is I would go with Delas. If by "bad" you mean unexciting, OK.

Tim York wrote:Bob, when did you last have a wine from Delas? IMO, they have become very sound producers, if rarely exciting, since the Roederer take-over. I prefer the likes of Jamet, Graillot, Gonon and Clape, but if they are not available and Delas is I would go with Delas. If by "bad" you mean unexciting, OK.

Hi Tim, I must admit that it has been several years since I have spent any $$ on a Delas wine. They (IMO) had become very much in the vein of the B&G wines. It must be at least 10-12 years or more since I have tried either. If you say Delas has improved, what is your opinion on the B&G? If you have seen my post re the Jaume 3L BIB CdR wine called Grand Venur, then you know that I am a fan of the Alain Jaume wines. It is likely that I will visit the BAWS today and I will look for a 2007 Delas CdR to try.

Hi Bob. Is this B&G you refer to Barton & Guestier? If so, I don't think that I have tried any of their wines for over 25 years, which shows what I used to think of them.

Re the CDR Saint-Esprit 07 from Delas, there is a lot of evidence that the bottles are very variable due, no doubt, to multiple bottling runs. Bob P posted some links to Wineberserkers and EBob which expanded on this. The first taste I had was poured by a Delas representative at a Brussels tasting (TNs of the range somewhere) and no doubt he took care that it was from a good bottling; I liked a second bottle from a supermarket much less but the food pairing did it no favours.

I had a conversation about bottling variations which Rémy Klein of the excellent QPR Rhône estate, La Réméjeanne, and he said that he was unable to get on top of these variations; using exactly the same methods, one bottling run may have reduction and the next may be good and so on. He has tried the biodynamic approach of having regard to moon phases, etc, with no useful results.

Tim York wrote:Hi Bob. Is this B&G you refer to Barton & Guestier? If so, I don't think that I have tried any of their wines for over 25 years, which shows what I used to think of them.

Re the CDR Saint-Esprit 07 from Delas, there is a lot of evidence that the bottles are very variable due, no doubt, to multiple bottling runs. Bob P posted some links to Wineberserkers and EBob which expanded on this. The first taste I had was poured by a Delas representative at a Brussels tasting (TNs of the range somewhere) and no doubt he took care that it was from a good bottling; I liked a second bottle from a supermarket much less but the food pairing did it no favours.

I had a conversation about bottling variations which Rémy Klein of the excellent QPR Rhône estate, La Réméjeanne, and he said that he was unable to get on top of these variations; using exactly the same methods, one bottling run may have reduction and the next may be good and so on. He has tried the biodynamic approach of having regard to moon phases, etc, with no useful results.

Thanks for the comeback Tim. Yes the B&G is Barton & Guestier, And 25 years is about how long I have been passing on the B&G wines as well. As for bottle variation in the Delas, that could account for my experience with them, but with so many wineries like Jaume and a host of others not having that problem, I think I will continue to not drink Delas. I will though, refrain from posting such blatant condemnations such as I posted above.

I am amused to read another twist in this saga of different appreciations/bottle variation. The Belgian "Test Achats" (equivalent to the UK's Consumer Association and its magazine "Which") has nominated this 2007 CdR Saint-Esprit as top red in its 2010 guide. Given its consumer emphasis, this guide concentrates on QPR and its evaluation gives more weight to analytical features than any other guides I have read but the TN is very mouth-watering -

C: Clear dark robe, garnet red with purple reflections. N: Ripe and deep with aromas of very ripe dark fruit and a touch of chocolate on airing. P: Full and generous with a fine reminder of the fruit from the nose; integrated and silky tannins and a long finish. (My loose translation)

My own experiences were very favourable for a pour by a Delas person at a tasting and less so of a bottle bought at a supermarket drunk with a possibly unsuitable pairing. I will now take a third look.

Last edited by Tim York on Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I hope that this is my definitive take on Côtes du Rhône Saint-Esprit 2007 - Delas - (€7,10), Syrah dominated with some Grenache both from the Ardèche, the north part of Southern Rhône. I found the previous bottle from the same source as this one quite acidic; my impressions here confirm, I think, my view that this was caused by the then pairing (tarte tatin aux oignons) being much too sweet to do any favours for this wine.

C: Quite deep garnet/prurple.N: Well developed and quite highly perfumed with notes of dark fruit (blackberry), floor polish and liquorice.P: Full bodied, generous, mouth-filling and quite long with a lot of quite sweet fruit well balanced by acidity, liquorice again with quite persistent and perfumed, almost synthetic-seeming, aromatics (cultured yeasts in the recipe?). The overall impression was vigorous, but not very refined; probably a good barbecue wine and I may buy some more for the summer; 15.5/20.

Not IMO elegant enough to be Test Achat's top red but certainly very enjoyable in the right context and good QPR.

So the bottles in Belgium seem OK for a generic Rhône but some of the others round the world very different.